BALTIMORE, MD — Earth Day was started as a way to help people recognize the impacts they have on our planet. It also is the birthday of one of Baltimore’s biggest advocates for conservation, Mr. Trash Wheel.
The ever-working cleaner is ten! So, how did this now-famous trash collector get its start?
If you walk around the Inner Harbor and cross over the Jones Falls footbridge, you’ll see two large googly eyes staring at you, not what you'd expect. That'sMr. Trash Wheelcleaning up trash that floats down the river.
Back in 2010, you would see trash. John Kellett wanted to change that, “Every day on my way to work I cross the foot bridge across the Jones Falls and I’d see the trash particularly after a rain storm just flowing into the harbor and I said why don’t we put something right here to stop it before it spreads out all over the harbor and to pick it up to get rid of it,” says Kellett.
So, he decided to do something and created the first Mr. Trash wheel prototype. Using the power of the Jones Falls, Kellett put together a water wheel to rake up the trash that floated down and drop it into a dumpster attached to the wheel.
The Waterfront Partnership, a nonprofit organization working to enhance the Inner Harbor, took an interest in the water wheel and things took off from there.
“We tested it for about a year and the waterfront partnership said wow what a difference it made. We need a permanent installation,” recalls Kellett.
Kellett then began working on a new water wheel with engineer, Steve Ziger, and came up with the design we have now.
The lovable character we know as Mr. Trash Wheel was thanks to Adam Lindquist, “When I started working here on the Healthy Harbor initiative trying to get people to care about cleaning up the Baltimore Harbor. That became a big question right away, ‘well how can we get people more invested in the health of the Baltimore harbor? I built the first set of googly eyes in my basement and we held them up on the device and that was like the aha moment, this is beautiful. People are going to love this because Mr. Trash Wheel turns out is adorable.”
From there Mr. Trash Wheel started his path to environmental super-stardom. It now has a fan club and even appeared in a Dr. Seuss book about green machines, helping it reach the new generation of environmentalists.
“As the father of a 4 year old like I can see how visceral the idea of a funny looking device that eats trash all day, that’s really captivating to the children of Baltimore and now hopefully children all over the country will now get to learn about Mr. Trash Wheel,” explains Lindquist.
Mr. Trash Wheel was such a success that it spurred an entire family: Professor Trash Wheel, Captain Trash Wheel, and, "Most recently Gwynnda The Good Wheel of the West, who sits at the end of the Gwynn Falls stream and collects more trash than all three trash wheels combined so, Gwynnda is the workhorse of the fleet.”
The trash wheel family has collected over 2,000 tons of trash in Baltimore but the trash wheel concept isn’t just a stateside thing Kellett helped design a trash wheel for the capital city of Panama, as they strive to keep their waterways and beaches clean as well.
Baltimore loves Mr. Trash Wheel so much he's event got his own coffee from Zeke's.
As for our trash wheels, come visit them, I’m sure they’ll be looking for you as well.